Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asialikely from a commoner background – he was born in Ternate’s kampong
Makassar (Makassar quarter) – he eventually gained affinal ties with
the royal houses of Tidore,^62 Bacan^63 and Maguindanao.^64 He served as
the navigator for the English country trader Thomas Forrest when he
surreptitiously visited Maluku between 1774 and 1776.^65 In effect, Haji
Umar assisted the English in collecting information on the economic
and political situation of Maluku and Papua in view of the British inter-
est to partake of the spice trade and of the various marine and forest
produce of the islands.^66
Haji Umar likely served as the channel between the Maguindanao
court and Prince Nuku of Tidore who led a protracted armed struggle
against Dutch rule in the Moluccas (c. 1780–1805).^67 Haji Umar’s ally
and important patron,^68 sultan Kibad Syahrial of Maguindanao, was
known to have gifted Prince Nuku an Islamic seal that is unique in the
region. Annabel Gallop describes it as a “very unusual shape of a circle
topped by a headpiece of three trefoil finials” and that such “presenta-
tion of a seal represented the bestowal of recognition by a great power
to a lesser one”.^69
- ANRI Ternate 1, Decisions of the Political Council of Ternate, 13 September 1777,
400-401. - ANRI Ternate 81, no. 4, Authentique Afschriften van de Crimineele Proces
Papieren contra Hadjie Oemar, unpaginated. - NA, VOC 8141, Ternate 3, Copia dagregister gehouden door den onderkoopman
Hemmekam gedurende zijne commissie naar de Sangirsche eilanden (ontvangen
anno 1780), fol. 88 - D. K. Bassett, British Trade and Policy in Indonesia and Malaysia in the Late Eighteenth
Century, Hull Monographs on Southeast Asia No. 3 (Hull: Centre for South-east
Asian Studies, The University of Hull, 1971): 36. See Forrest, A Voyage to New
Guinea, and the Moluccas from Balambangan. - Muridan Widjojo, The Revolt of Prince Nuku: Cross-cultural Alliance-making in
Maluku, c. 1780–1810 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009): 165–66. - See ibid.; Andaya, The World of Maluku.
- On the relationship between Haji Umar and Kibad Syahrial, see NA, VOC, 8141,
Ternate 3, Copia dagregister gehouden door den onderkoopman Hemmekam
gedurende zijne commissie naar de Sangirsche eilanden (ontvangen anno 1780),
fol. 88. - Annabel Teh Gallop, “Islamic Seals from the Philippines”, in Isaac Donoso (ed.),
More Islamic than We Admit: Insights into Philippine Cultural History (Quezon City:
Vibal, 2014): 244–45.